One of the worst Scooby-Doo shows

wile_E2005

Updated as of 2012 I have never liked the Warner Bros. cartoons that are produced by Sander Schwartz (2002-2007), and most of them are crap. It makes me sad seeing such programming made by a company that once made such great cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Wile E. Coyote and the rest, changing and turning out mediocre un-funny product. THIS one, however, I feel is one of the WORST Scooby-Doo shows ever made! ("Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue" is also just as bad, if not worse). I grew up watching classic Scooby, and it had a lot of stuff that made it fun... lovable characters, good voice cast, memorable music, goofy sound effects, and more. But with this new series, it is very difficult for me to watch, especially knowing that it was made by the same studio that made the classic Looney Tunes. For one thing, the Hanna-Barbera sound effects are seldom used here, not even the Disney-esque "Castle Thunder" sound effect (it was only used a couple of times in the entire series, probably because the sound effect was presented with a very low-fidelity quality as if it were ripped off one of Edison's wax cylinders), instead they favored for more realistic, louder thunderclaps that could hurt your ears if the volume is too high, and the rest of the sound effects are the standard "house" WB sound FX in use at the time, making it sound less like a cartoon and more like real life. The music is mostly generic 2000s-cartoon synthesizer scores, and often sometimes overpowers the stories and images. The animation also gets rather poor at times, even for 2000s Termite Terrace standards! At least we have Casey Kasem and Frank Welker, two of the original voices. Also, I was not really a fan of Frank Welker's Scooby voice in this show. It sounds more like Brain from the "Inspector Gadget" cartoon (ironically, Frank Welker also did Brain's voice in "Inspector Gadget," as well as Dr. Claw!) The humans also don't act like how they originally did. They now act like how they were in "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo." Fred is not very smart and tends to do weird stuff, goof things up, and is practically IN LOVE with his Mystery Machine! Daphne is now a stereotypical teenage girl who panics if her clothes get dirty (at least she doesn't have a butler in this installment). She also now sounds like Vicky from "The Fairly Oddparents" (fact is, Grey DeLisle, the voice of Vicky, voices Daphne in this show, and sometimes voices Velma, too). Another main beef is that this show does not focus very much on Scooby-Doo himself! He may have four or five lines of dialogue in a 30-minute episode, and that is it. It almost seemed the producers wanted Fred, Daphne and Velma to be the stars of the show, because it focuses more on them 2/3rds of the time. The one exception was that weird "Camp Comeoniwannascareya" episode that only feature Shaggy and Scooby (while not great, it was rather interesting.) This cartoon is all just a cheap mockery of the Scooby-Doo franchise (sort of like "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" but without the fun put into parodying the conventions) , while "Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue" was just another "Loonatics Unleashed." In fact, this show does not even have as much of a creepy atmosphere anymore, compared to the Scooby-Doo cartoons of the 1970s! That is another reason I don't like this show. This is the main reason why the name Sander Schwartz makes my blood boil, because of what he has done to the beloved Scooby characters! A few episodes, however, were actually decent and fun to watch, but the rest of them aren't very good. But I still do not like how Warner Bros. messed up Scooby-Doo at this time (including with the "Get a Clue!" series). For shame, WB. However, WB seems to have improved a bit with "Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated." A number of things "What's New" got wrong, this new show gets right! I recommend skipping over "What's New Scooby-Doo" and "Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue" and going straight over to the new "Mystery Inc." show instead.

score 3/10

wile_E2005 10 August 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1147195/